Something's A Bit Fishy
by silentmusic16
Summary: In which fish tanks are metaphors. An AU surrealist oneshot. Complete


**Like most of my stories, this one isn't really written for the Bakemonogatari universe but worked itself into the story. It matched better than KH anyway.**

**This story is my experiment in surrealism, and although the story and writing aren't up to my usual shine, it's something I want to experiment with.**

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I had, for more than 5 minutes, become entranced by the fish tank in front of me in that large fish emporium. Filled with fish of all different colors, sizes, and levels of consciousness, they swam back and forth with no reason like a rainbow of life. The water, clear and real, reflected the fake background of rocks pasted to the back of the tank. Incessantly the hum of the filter bothered me so much because it truly shouldn't be there; it was unnatural. And then there was the fluorescent light above the tank that flickered every few seconds on and off, on and off, on and off. I hated the entire scene.

There's something about the entire _nature_ of a fish tank that made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the thought that the way we look in on the glass tank, there was _something_ out there looking in on us. Or maybe it was the feeling of being a disgusting voyeur, overlooking their insignificant lives and getting some perverted thrill. _Fish_ I feared thinking, _are just_ so_ below us._ Perhaps it was the way they swam back and forth all without any conscious desires or thoughts or feelings, like false dolls. But that could be natural; maybe it was humanity that was the "black sheep" of the animal kingdom: what other animals question themselves at every step? Become conscious of every action? Try to understand our large, unknowable world? It was only man that did those things. The praying mantis did not question itself before a strike at its unsuspecting prey. The crow didn't wonder why it can fly. It was humanity that was wrong.

The longer I stared at the fish tank, the more I felt this was the absolute truth; humanity was absurd, and keeping fish in a tank, a false imitation of their real environment, a glass world, was the worst thing we could do. I grew angry, fists shaking at my sides, and I assume the scowl on my face was noticeable because a few people around me began to stare oddly, scratch at their necks watching me to see what I was going to do. Was I going to snap? Kill them? Break down crying? No. I was going to do none of those things.

What I _was_ going to do, however, was a bit…drastic. Looking back on it now, perhaps it was the wrong thing to do at the time. Or at most times, in most places. However it was the most natural thing I could think of at that moment. I looked right, then left, and that at the fish tank in front of me, before pulling it down from the shelf. With a mighty crash the glass shattered, the illusion broke, the fish's world collapsed. Water started pooling on the floor and someone in the back started screaming. I smiled and then did it again to the next one, and the next, and the next, until I was positively prancing around the store, pulling down everything that I could. Someone tried to grab my shoulder and stop me but I twisted out of his grasp and continued on my rampage. It felt glorious, amazing, so freeing.

Again, I to think back at that moment, all I _actually _did was kill some fish and cause lots of property damage. I ended their silly little lives. But theirs was only an imitation of the lives of their free ocean-dwelling brothers, swimming to their hearts' content in the open arena of life. I probably seemed manic as I tore down everything of that glass-cage life style I could find. I destroyed everything I could get my hands on and the floor had a good inch of water by the end, with floating pieces of glass and plastic and metal and fading, flopping fish everywhere. The smell of their death started becoming over bearing, but I couldn't just stop and run out. I had to do everything, everything I could until it was all over.

By the end it had taken 3 men to hold me down where I stood, hands reaching for the last tank as though it were the sun, fingers grasping at that last tomb to rip down. I escaped just long enough to do so before they brought me to the ground, yelling and punching and angry and all I could do was smile in bliss; I accomplished the liberation of the little fish. I freed those who only ever knew their limited world of glass and falsity. It took no time at all for the police to get to the store and promptly arrest me, having first the need to step through glass and water and dead animals. In a corner, the admittedly kind owner of the store was crying over the loss of, well, everything in his store. A pang of sympathy for him hit my heart, and I made sure to send him an "I'm sorry" card from my jail cell as quickly as I could. Not that it would make up for anything, anyway.

~!~

I was in the precinct for hours on end, being questioned as to what it was, exactly, I thought to accomplish by destroying a business. I explained to the cops exactly what I was thinking at the time.

"What, did you tear the place down for some faux-philosophical reason? That's not a good excuse under the law."

I didn't expect it to be.

A year in prison and a fine became my punishment, dealt out by the law and executed promptly. And on my first night in prison, do you know what I did? I laughed. Why? Because being in that prison was very much like the glass tanks from which I liberated the fish. Constantly on watch from creatures "better" than me (the guards), fed at the whim of my masters, trapped in a cage of sorts, surrounded by like minded and like-destined peers of all colors and sizes. I was almost in a daze the entire time I was incarcerated, trying to wrap my mind around the ironic backlash of what I was thrust into and the philosophical meaning of it all. And thus, whilst I believe in no cosmic deity, I do believe in the force of irony. Or perhaps karma, if only because my punishment was too perfect. I destroyed cages and was put in one? I freed the unknowing, only to become one myself? I committed a crime and was punished with the same thing? No, it was too perfect. There was something _fishy_ about the goings-on, to say the least. Or at least I thought so at the time.

One night, while in jail, I was visited by a fish god. I was woken up from a deep sleep to find myself in a nondescript world or room with an ever moving background of colors and patterns. Before me floated a giant fish, whose species and size and coloring, as well as the rooms, changed with every blink of my eyes. Bubbles floated into the "sky" and disappeared. For a long time the fish god stared at me and said nothing, only kept staring, mouth opening and closing periodically to let out another stream of bubbles despite the fact that we weren't underwater - as far as I could tell, anyway.

It spoke, finally, while staring directly into my eyes. "For freeing my spawn, I grant you one wish."

I was quite surprised.

"A wish?"

It just kept floating, bubbles streaming up into the air.

Blink, it changed, the room changed

Blink, it changed, the room changed. Only its eyes, more blue than I could even describe were I to be given knowledge of every word in existence, stayed the same.

I thought hard on this one wish granted to me by the fish god. It could theoretically be anything, anything at all and yet I was at a loss. Would I wish to be out of prison? No, by that point I had already served half my sentence and the wish would be a waste. Unlimited money? Power? Fame? Boring and common. I needed something with meaning, something unique, and something that would compliment my imprisonment-by-irony.

I then told the fish god my wish.

~!~

The next morning I awoke still in my jail cell. The stone grown seemed to almost radiate a chilly air and the iron bars set up the day's depressing tone. I rubbed my eyes and the vague recollection of a dream involving a floating fish god swam around my head. Was it a dream? I wasn't sure. Not until I looked down to see that each and every wall in the prison was now a fish tank. Some were large, some small, some round, others rectangular, each one filled to the brim with water and every species of fish imaginable. One very large tank down in the center of the prison featured a giant blue whale leisurely swimming round and round. Soon, the voices of the awakening guards and prisoners created an uproarious cacophony in the place, all unable to wrap their minds around the change. It didn't make sense to them.

But I smiled. I smiled despite all that, because my wish was this; that all of the walls in the world were fish tanks. Every single one. Strong enough to keep up with any material it eventually replaced (I didn't want houses and buildings to crumble on top of the unsuspecting citizens of the world, mind you). But this would set up an almost aquarium-like character to life; we'd look into each other's lives like we look into fish tanks. So I decided it'd be best take a proactive step towards my message to the world and I did the one thing I knew how to do; I kicked down my fish tank wall, exited the prison, and went on my way to tear down every single fish tank in the world.

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**Criticism and reviews are appreciated; they help me refine my writing.**


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